Beware! Scary Times!

Caveat Emptor!
(Let the buyer beware!)

My family's financial future has been radically impacted in a positive way by the biblical principles  applied in Dave Ramsey's "Financial Peace University" course. One of the key principles promoted is to be aware of the tendency to over spend when using credit cards. This evening, as my wife and daughter and I were shopping. I came across this VISA "promotion" that was interestingly posted amidst some Halloween decorations. I about fell over, thinking, "I have got to send this to Dave Ramsey!" 

By God's grace, we want to bring glory and honor to His Name in every area of our lives... including our finances. We want to live like no one else, so that someday, we can... give like no one else.

6 Train up a child in the way he should go;
even when he is old he will not depart from it.7 The rich rules over the poor,
and the borrower is the slave of the lender.8 Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity,
and the rod of his fury will fail.9 Whoever has a bountiful eye will be blessed,
for he shares his bread with the poor.

Proverbs 22:6-9

Growing in grace... and amazed...

Please, Lord... Could I have some "more"? Come hungry... Get Happy.

Unlike young Oliver, in Charles Dickens' novel, Oliver Twist, coming to the Lord, and asking for "more" will not result in a "bash to the head" from a cruel task master... 

When we come to the Lord of glory and ask for "more"

• more of His grace
• more of His glory 
• more of Him

...to this request, He says:

"Ah! My child - my poor, mournful, starving child... come in. I am so pleased to have you. I have great news for you.  I have made a place at my table for you. I have the richest of foods, and you can eat to your soul's delight. "

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."

Matthew 5:6

Come hungry... get happy.

I want to want Him more...

"There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God..." Ps 46
There are a lot of things that I want. Most of them seem to me to be good things.

• I want health and wholeness for those I love.
• I want to start running and getting to the gym again.

• I want to be more aware of the super-abounding sufficiency of God's grace in my life than of sin, sickness and weakness.
  
  
• I want to be more thankful.
  
  
• I want to grow in godliness, leading my family, and influencing my little corner of the world in the grace and truth of the Gospel.
• I want to better understand the relationship between God's will regarding suffering vs. healing. I hear conflicting perspectives, none of which escape without a measure of “dim glass/veiled vision” syndrome. I’m OK with that… but Jesus did not seem to let that get in His way. I know, He was sinless…. But He was dependent on the Word of the Father and the leading and empowerment by the Holy Spirit… So, I think that God would be OK with me depending on His Word, and being led and empowered by the Holy Spirit to "Bring the Kingdom" where ever I set my foot. (like I said, I want to better understand that.)

But I want more…Do you know what I "want to want"? What I want to want... above all things... is God.

• I want to be so hungry for Jesus that I would not be able to conceive of not taking time to spend time alone with Him
• I don't want to "do my quiet time"... I want to want to go sit at my Master's feet, and enjoy Him.
• I want the mind of Christ to prevail over my feeble, finite understanding,
• I want to be closer to the Father….
• I want my heart to beat in sync with the Father’s heart

"Draw near to God. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." Ps 37

"There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God..." Ps 46

Well?.... I don't know about you, but I'm hot, tired and thirsty.... I’m heading for the stream that makes glad the city of God… Let's go! Last one in is…. well?... dry! (at least until you jump in J)

That for which you live is that for which you will die...

I think that there is an axiom that goes something like this: "What you live for is, in actuality, what you will die for."... So I said to myself, "Self? What am I willing to die for? Am I living for that?"

Jesus said, "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?" (Mark 8:36). The Scriptures are replete with encouragements, admonitions and even commands to pursue that which of eternal value over that which will ultimately perish.

I just don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I have lived my life for nothing of enduring value. There is obviously a sense in which we live our lives in the corporeal, sensory, material world... and I would never want to denigrate that... God created this world, and he has called us to live, love and glorify him here and now. God help us to avoid the "spiritual is good, material is bad" thing. My understanding of Heaven is that it will have material dimensions. (Revelation 21:16)

I guess I am saying that I want to live for that which will endure. The Bible tells us that we were created for a person and a place. That person is Jesus and place is Heaven. (Thank you, Randy Alcorn, for the way that you life and ministry trumpets this.) I want the trajectory of my life ("trajectory", I love that; thanks, Nick Swan, for introducing that use of the word to me ) to be Heaven. I want the passion of my soul to be to love, to worship and to trust Jesus. He promises to bring everything else into focus, to lead, to guide, to provide.

I want to continue to grow in pursuing that which is eternal, that which brings glory and honor to the Name above all names, to my Lord, who loves me with an everlasting love.... So for now... "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" Micah 6:8

When "speaking of that which is of the highest importance, but lies beyond experience - decline to say on the one hand, 'This can never be,' and on the other hand, 'It must needs be precisely thus, and we know all about it.'"

Edwin A. Abbott 1884